The missing discourse of gender: A qualitative study of a teacher inquiry group in a public girls' school

In recent years hundreds of new single-sex schools and programs have opened in the United States, most of them in low-income public schools. Research with teachers in such schools will improve their preparation for these classrooms and provide much-needed information about their experiences, needs and knowledge. This dissertation describes a year-long study conducted with teachers in a public girls' school located in an urban community. The central objective was to document a school-based teacher inquiry group investigating their practice of teaching. The inquiry group was intended to create a space for teachers to reflect on what it means to teach in an all girls' school and to encourage a discussion of gender and education. The study explores questions arising out of the teachers' experiences including: What do teachers believe about the purpose of single-sex education? How can schools help teachers learn to effectively utilize the single-sex environment? What is the potential for single-sex education to promote gender equity? How do teachers experience participation in an inquiry group devoted to this topic? Over the course of the year, the group discussed many topics including student pregnancy, homosexuality and the ways that race affects student/teacher relationships. Of particular importance to the teachers was addressing the difficulty of attending to the students' personal as well as academic challenges. Applying an ethnographic methodology, I used a collaborative action research framework to prioritize the teachers' voices. The dissertation is framed by literature from the fields of single-sex education, gender studies and learning through inquiry. There is a particular focus on race and gender and the ways that the teachers' personal and professional identities affected their understanding of their roles, their relationships with the students and their experiences in an urban girls' school. This study demonstrates how crucial it is in an urban single-sex school serving an almost entirely African American student body to remain aware of the ways that aspects of the teachers' and students' identities are affecting the school culture and learning environment.